Adventures as an Amateur Programmer

Machiavellian Reasons why Polticians need to keep the internet free

2010-02-10T07:51:00.005-06:00

Of all the things the people of most of the Internet accessible nations of the world have is the ability to allow the masses to speak on the Internet. Where Free Speech is exactly just that. Un-bashfully without proper courtesy of being PC or at least at the digression of the Author in question.

In 2000 BC it was the Roman Colosseum that kept the masses in line. In the Dark Ages it was the Fear of the Church and God. 1700s those who could went to plays or brewed there own variant on the preferred local spirits.

So, Ladies and Gentlemen. What's today's version of that same theory? The INTERNET. Where people can come and let off steam without having to worry that the government will not crack down on them unless there are plans to actually kill 1000s of people or do harm to children. Where the internet is the Wild West. Where Laws are only loosely enforced and considered in most part "just a suggestion" as if breaking a law that applies to the Internet is just under getting a speeding ticket.

Those who pay you (and believe me if you have lobbying in your country then you're not being paid by those who elected you, let just get that straight.) who are like the RIAA or MIAA and there various national counterparts elsewhere and various other industries that have a stake in the "health" of the internet like Mircosoft, Google, IBM, etc.

Machiavellian Reasons
I am a programmer and a philosopher. To me theses are complimentary ideas for both stem from a premise and utilise logic to solve a problem. Machiavelli's Book The Prince he brings the sights down from the total ideal and goes on how to getting and keeping power in a Monarchy. Sadly this no longer applies outside of a small remote area of the world. Although with some changes you can start to emerge a theory of how it can be worked in a Republic such as Australia, the "Functional Monarchy" of the UK, or the "Democracy" of the United States.

1. Give the People a Outlet to comfort them. For the sheep that we are clearly do not want to be in control since we obviously have most likely for the last few years have always been royal screwed by those in power because they got greedy or became corrupt while in power. In the World now a days where "Freedom" of Speech is a cornerstone of existence and peace for a nation you cannot attempt to cite it outside of "War Time" as the United States has done on several occasions (Civil War, WWII, and the current quagmires in the desert)

2. Once the people are comfortable with there little chew toy. Start changing everything else but the chew toy. If Alan Moore's V for Vendetta had the use of the Internet then making a sample of one Terrorist would of stopped the whole rebellion because simply you can broadcast it. Even if the Terrorist is just an actor. Use their chew toy as a means of communication and a means to insight the fear that without this safe chew toy there world crumbles.

3. "But think of the children." - Paedophilia is a crime because of the age limitations defined by your state currently. Most have extended that to pictures or films of acts. Which would be legitimate and should be enforced because it is already a common theory. Australia has gone of the deep end here and has obviously encited the "wrath" of a bunch of 15 year old men who want their porn to be as close to looking like there little sister without actually being incest AKA Anonymous.

4. "But those that have paid me." - Those who have paid you to be a hard nose on the subject is probally one of three things. One, the RIAA/MIAA or counterpart in which they are draconian anyways and need to be abolished and restructured in a way that allows for changing world they now live in. Two, Google / Microsoft / IBM / etc. who really want to take control of the internet which they should not be allowed to do without the complete consent of the world. Some would agrue that Google did that when they became both a verb and a noun. Three, Complete Idiots who deserve to have their money stolen from them outright. If the People hate you it doesn't matter how much money you have from those who paid you and it's much eaiser to run as a someone that "sticks up for the little guy" then it is to run as someone that "sell out to big business like a cheap crackwhore."

I guess what I'm saying here gentlemen. If you're willing to listen is this. To keep the Internet free or as close as it currently stands means to reason that you will be able to pressure them in other ways. Look at the trend of technology gentlemen. It will only get more pervasive as time goes on and as time goes on you want them to believe there chew toy is indestructible and infinite and everlasting. Essentially you want to sell the Internet as if you were selling the Bible. Full of bullshit and insanity but they'll follow it anyway because it has a good message and can be used to carry a tune with one major difference. It creates jobs.

Now who doesn't want to see the job market increase now? Make the Internet into your "Cure-All" and "Cancer" whenever you need it to. Do this and you'll be in power as long as you live or as long as you can stand it.

And then there was...

2010-01-12T21:46:00.002-06:00

More work and less time to dedicate to my personal side projects. At the moment I'm working on bug fixes for the custom CMS system I've been working on for my work over on http://www.eyeofthevortexonline.com needless to say it's been a great ride so far. But I'm still looking for any contract work that may come my way on Guru.com and other places like it. If you know any good freelance contract places like Guru. Let me know.

Good Luck. You never know when you'll need it most.

Still working Hard...

2009-08-23T17:08:00.002-05:00

Well... I know I haven't updated in a good bit. I do have to say I've been working recently on jPlayer which is a fantastic HTML/CSS ui based player with NO visable flash. Oh and HTML5 support for those who don't have Flash, but have HTML support.

I highly recommend this player for anyone's next audio / music website when Flash just isn't a great option.

Updates and New Stuff!

2009-06-18T07:25:00.002-05:00

Alright, I found a techinical bug in my original dice Parser, so I went and fixed that.
get the new on off my mediafire (here)

Also, in PHP, I took it on myself (with help from my friend Neuromancer at MDV forums) and built the ShadowRun Dice Parser (which uses my Standard Notation Parser as a fundimental base) so you can play with that (here)

Apparently plans are in the works to building our own PHP/Javascript RPG game and a Shadow Run Character Generator in PHP/Javascript.

Keep on keeping on - by all means.

Building a RPG Game in PHP

2009-06-15T01:18:00.003-05:00

Alright, I'm going to already admit some initial defeat on my theories for a PHP RPG game. I wanted to have an inventory system simular to Diablo II, but since PHP doesn't have good pointers (outside of the internal array) it would be very hard to create a inventory system simular. So I'm opting for a eaiser FF style list and stacking system.

Right now I'm just working theory and have not written any code.

Dice Roller by MZ

2009-06-10T22:08:00.006-05:00

Over the last week or so I decided to put together a dice roller and standard dice notation parser in PHP, it's very basic right now, but it's also a great little program that you can put into almost any other system that uses PHP. I'm effectively done with this part of it and I'm going to work on a ShadowRun Dice Roller based on this one and then maybe work on a PHPBB3 Dice Roller from this as well.

Current Feature list for 1.0 (Completed and Ready for Download)
4 Math Modifiers of your choice (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division)Modifiers are applied as they are written in notationKeep High and Low function (keep is defaulted to high)Compare and Threshold (Threshold only counts the number of die that return true)Average of Rolls before Modifiers (with rounding options of up, down, and normal)Fudge Results rolling option (FUDGE works on a -x...+x scale instead of a 0 or 1... +x scale)a rolling option to add modifiers directly to die instead of the total (this doesn't throw off Average)Almost any time you can put a static number, you may put a dice rollKeep High is k# or kh#, while Keep Low is kl#, you can have both keeps in a dice notation.
Compare use the greater than, less than, or equal to symbols. Less than and greater than or equal to act like less/greater than or equal to.

How to Use in most basic form.
$dice = new Dice();
$dice ->parseDice("StringOfDiceNotation");
$dice->printDice();

I would give examples of Standard Notation, but for some odd reason Blogger doesn't like the some of the symbols used in it...

For those who wish to download this dice roller for your own testing by all means. Download MZ's Dice Roller (5.51kb) Mediafire

Comments are Welcomed and hopefully they can give me ideas for my dice roller and maybe give me some help on any bugs you find (I hope you don't find any!)